February 22, 2008

A couple weeks ago I bought a brown, scuffed up chair from our local Salvation Army and turned it into this for our bedroom. I think I'm in love with it.

How to do it:1. In your workshop (or dining room, in our case), flip your ugly chair over and remove the four screws holding the seat on. The seat will now lift off. Set it aside.

2. Sand the whole chair to rough up the finish a bit so the paint will stick. Smooth off any scratches or weirdness. Wipe the dust off with a cloth.

3. With a brush, apply a coat of general-purpose latex primer. Don't worry that your chair looks hideous after this step. Then put on as many coats of latex paint as you need for an even finish. I put on three over the course of two days. This is a pain.

4. To recover the seat, flip it over and remove the staples or tacks that hold the fabric on. Don't be grossed out by the condition of the foam cushion under there. If it's icky, just go buy new seat foam at a fabric store. A piece of new seat padding is available for a couple bucks and comes wrapped in plastic and perfectly sized. I was astonished. It turns out most seats are a standard size. The foam piece is perfectly rectangular, so just trace your wooden seat bottom onto it with a pen and cut off the wedges with a scissors to form a trapezoid that fits your seat.

5. Stack the foam and wood bottom onto a piece of fabric and use it as a template to cut a new seat cover, leaving enough margin to be able to fold your fabric around to the underside of the seat. When positioning your seat on the fabric, pay attention to the pattern in your fabric so your seat will align nicely with the repeats. (This fabric is Peapod.)

6. Use a staple gun to tack the new fabric cover snugly onto the seat.

Nice job!If anyone needs to cut the foam - a good tip is to use an electric knife (the kind used for carving turkey) - it makes nice smooth edges.PS: I love your creativity, and wrote about you on my blog yesterday! =)Have a lovely weekend.

I love the chair. I had a similiar experience last year with two chairs. I have one more waiting to be sanded. Sadly, it needs a lot of sanding. I'll have to wait until the weather warms up to tackle it. I am inspired by your cushions. I definitely needs could use some cushions to brighten things up.

Thank you! I could do the seat fabric change but the tips on the sanding process of the chair is priceless. What you said made perfect sense! I have six dining room chairs on my list to redo and hopefully now that I understand ALL the steps, lol, I will start working on them!Kathyp.s. I do love your fabric designs!

The chair looks awesome! What kind of paint did you use? I painted an old desk, but didn't prime it first. The paint still feels sticky 6 months later. I wonder if the primer would have prevented that.

Wow! Very beautiful, and inspiring. I have a small little cupboard/drawer/furniture thing in our kitchen that needs to be redone, and you have inspired me. I found your blog about two weeks ago and love it! I'm adding you to my blogroll, so others can find you, too (though you obviously have many fans!) Shellyfish

Your chair is fantastic and looks so great with the wall paint color in your bedroom. I'm getting married next month and we're consolidating furniture, and doing the kitchen in white and green. I may have to paint and recover some chairs in the herb print!

Hi Jess! I'm new here and really enjoying your blog and links to other interesting blogs. I actually started my own blog yesterday because I feel so inspired. Anyway, I LOVE these chairs ! I currently have some old spindle-back chair that can't be recovered. This tutorial makes me want to sell them and go thrifting so I can refinish and fabric-cover new old ones !! Have a great day!

Sooo darling! Just what I was looking for when I tried to google up some instructions for repainting my dining chairs white. Although I'm wondering how *much* to sand first. Does the wood need to feel rough? I feel like I can't break through the layer of shiny stuff on my wood chairs. I don't want to ruin them by sanding too much... Thanks! I'll read your site regularly!

I think as long as you just sand it a little, the finish gets a little rougher and less smooth. You don't have to take it all off. I didn't, anyhow. Just go over it once, and even if it still feels smooth, it will have a bit more "tooth" than it did before, and that will help the paint stick.

Love your blog. (LOVE it!) I starred this post a long time ago because I have a bunch of chairs to recover and thought it useful. Now I am actually getting around to it and wondering where you get the seat cushions pre-cut, someplace like JoAnn's or would it have to be a fabric store that specializes in upholstery? Thanks!!

A tip for painting chairs? Hammer some nails halfway into the bottom of the legs...then the chair is raised off the ground for easier painting and you can just pull the nails out when it is dry.Gorgeous, as always!

A tip for painting chairs? Hammer some nails halfway into the bottom of the chair's legs...then the chair will be raised for easier painting and you can simply pull the nails out when the chair is dry.Gorgeous work, as always...I am a HUGE Orange fan!

Hi well done, but I do traditional upholstery and for on an old chair like that you would use layers of horsehair or coconut matting then a canvas layer,on top of that cotton felt and then the fabric I only use tacks not staples have a look on e-bay under wildstrawberrypicking and totally enviromentally friendly too.If you need any advice let me know.